2017-01-19 所属栏目:科学美国人

When we humans talk to other humans, the sounds we make all have very specific meanings. "When I say apple you immediately imagine something that has the characteristics of an appl

2017-01-16 所属栏目:科学美国人

More than half of U.S. households provide food for birds. It's a billion dollar industry. Now a study asks whether the same feeders that attract birds also attract predators that

2017-01-16 所属栏目:科学美国人

Menopause marks the end of a female’s babymaking era. And not just for humans. Female killer whales go through menopause, too. And a new study finds that they might get pushe

2017-01-13 所属栏目:科学美国人

The surface of Mars is etched with ancient river valleys and lake basins. Which makes researchers think that liquid water once flowed on the Red Planet. But how? Today, Mars is too

2017-01-12 所属栏目:科学美国人

Long ago, before Band–Aids, or even medicine of any kind, our ancestors evolved to heal cuts themselves. If you got sliced open, the body blocked it up, to prevent blood loss

2017-01-09 所属栏目:科学美国人

Concrete is one of the most widely used materials on the planet. "And this consumption comes with a heavy ecological price." Rouzbeh Shahsavari, a materials scientist at Rice Unive

2017-01-06 所属栏目:科学美国人

Zika virus infection during pregnancy has been linked to the abnormal brain development called microcephaly. Now a study finds more evidence for the connection.

Researchers at the

2017-01-04 所属栏目:科学美国人

You are what you eat, the old expression goes. But it leaves out one crucial detail. "We don't dine alone. We dine with trillions of friends." Jeff Gordon, a microbiologist at Was

2017-01-03 所属栏目:科学美国人

Human parents usually have one or sometimes two offspring at a time, and when babies get delivered we pour all our energy into child rearing. But other animals raise lots of babies

2016-12-29 所属栏目:科学美国人

Global warming deniers love to point to cold or snow as evidence against climate change. Like Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe. Remember last year, when he tossed a snowball in Congre

2016-12-27 所属栏目:科学美国人

The little brown bat was once abundant in the eastern U.S. But within the last 15 years, a fungus called Pseudogynmoascus destructans infiltrated a cave in upstate New York. This f

2016-12-27 所属栏目:科学美国人

Tens of trillions of microbes call our living bodies home. But when we die? "The first thing that happens is basically ecosystem collapse—where you have a tremendous loss of

2016-12-23 所属栏目:科学美国人

Pregnancy brings big physical changes to a woman's body. But what three neuroscientists were more interested in was, what does it do to the woman’s brain? "We were in our 30

2016-12-20 所属栏目:科学美国人

In March 2015, the co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 crashed the jet into the French Alps, killing himself and 149 others. Later on, investigators found out he'd googled poisons

2016-12-19 所属栏目:科学美国人

You may have spotted V-shaped squadrons of geese heading south this fall. But for many migrants—like smaller songbirds—nighttime is the right time, when it comes to mig

2016-12-15 所属栏目:科学美国人

Babies benefit from breast-feeding—they have a lower risk of infections, vomiting and diarrhea and less of a chance of later developing adult onset diabetes. And now a study

2016-12-14 所属栏目:科学美国人

Advocates for self-driving cars love to tout the benefits the cars would bring, such as fewer accidents and less congestion. Another alleged value of being a passenger rather than

2016-12-13 所属栏目:科学美国人

It's bad enough that mosquitoes suck our blood, and sometimes pass on disease. But there's more. "They can actually give you a disease and pee on you at the same time. Adding ins

2016-12-09 所属栏目:科学美国人

Every flu season—that’s now through the spring—epidemiologists track flu infections as they break out across the country. And they forecast how bad it's going to

2016-12-06 所属栏目:科学美国人

Old Yeller was a great smeller. Dogs in general have superior smelling abilities. They detect dead bodies, illegal drugs and explosives—even cancer. But dogs don't just have

2016-12-05 所属栏目:科学美国人

Perhaps you’ve seen the famous TED talk about so-called power poses. It encouraged viewers to change the course of their lives by assuming what are thought of as dominant pos

2016-12-02 所属栏目:科学美国人

“I have now worked in seven states across India, and we’ve looked at human-wildlife interactions, particularly human-wildlife conflict ranging from crop loss, livestock

2016-12-01 所属栏目:科学美国人

The Unnatural World is the title of a new book by former Scientific American environment editor David Biello. The subtitle: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth’s Newest

2016-11-29 所属栏目:科学美国人

Your nose may be the first place you think of as a source of mucus. But mucus is a major player in your gut, too. "There's antimicrobial peptides and proteins that are present in

2016-11-24 所属栏目:科学美国人

Climate change may be partly to blame for the massive die-off of pine trees in the western U.S. But it works the other way, too: forest die-offs can alter the global climate.

"I